BEFORE I FOUND YOU a gripping mystery full of killer twists

by Daisy White

  “Yes, they have. There are a couple of them out on the Downs at the moment. Miss Smith is so upset,” Beverly pauses, taking a long breath, her eyes welling up. “She is the nicest lady, and she’s been so kind, making me lunch and cups of tea. But she doesn’t know any more than we do. I checked the room where the girls slept last night, and the window is one of those big sash ones. If you pull the bottom up, it’s plenty big enough for a man to climb through, and certainly two girls.” Beverly bites her lip.

  I put an arm around Beverly’s shoulders, feeling her thin body shaking with emotion. “Thanks Mary, you are the best. Johnnie’s just ringing around to try and get any more information. He suggested I might try to call Will, but I won’t be able to stop him from coming over, and I really don’t want him involved any more . . .”

  “Rubes, I totally agree with you. You don’t have to justify it. I know you’re grateful to Will, because you have a history. But I can see he’s worrying you, too. Even without this new information about who he works for, he needs to be cut loose. If I was you, I’d try Trixie.”

  “She said not to call her again. She told me everything, anyway.”

  “She doesn’t know the girls have gone missing. It’s worth a go.”

  The door bangs behind the last client, and I pause for a second before heading straight to the telephone.

  The phone rings for ages before a woman answers, hard-voiced and disinterested.

  “I need to speak to Trixie, please. It’s Ruby.”

  “What club are you working in, Ruby?”

  “I . . . I don’t work in a club. I just need to speak to Trixie. It’s really important.”

  The woman sighs down the line, and yells to someone behind her. The seconds tick past, and I cross my fingers.

  “Sorry love, she’s not in. Try later, alright?”

  Next I call the news desk at the Herald, and Kenny says they’ll be with us in fifteen minutes.

  “We’re going to Catherine’s house, Ruby. Is there anything we can do?” Eve asks, pulling on her thick coat.

  “I don’t think so, thanks. We’re going to check the house in Landsdown Road, but I really don’t expect anyone to be there. They had so much notice they’re sure to have cleared out, but we need to make sure.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that I am hoping that Inspector Hammond will finally be able to turn his attention to the case and get the appropriate people arrested,” Johnnie says, rolling down his shirtsleeves and reaching for his tweed jacket. “You know, it won’t have been as easy as you think, Ruby, for Appleton to get away with taking the girls. After all, he needs an alibi, and he would have had to be at work at the usual time. Say he took the girls, and left them with Stocker, with whatever instructions, and went to work. Ultimately he is still answerable to Hammond, so he would have had to put on a show today, playing down the Collins case, making sure everyone sees him around the station . . .”

  “You mean he might be going to meet Stocker later? And the girls?” Beverly’s voice is edged with panic.

  “I don’t know, darling. This is all guesswork.”

  The telephone rings and I pick up the receiver, hand shaking.

  “Ruby?” Trixie’s cold, hard voice comes down the line.

  “Ella and Lily have disappeared. They went last night from the orphanage. Do you have any idea where they might be?”

  “This has something to do with Appleton, I suppose? No, I can’t think of anywhere. Stocker doesn’t have anywhere else that I know of. He sold everything, so if he isn’t holed up in his house with the girls, and that does seem a bit unlikely, he may have tried to drive them somewhere. Or just killed them last night. He isn’t going to be just waiting for the police to appear.”

  “You said it was over, but it isn’t, is it?”

  She ignores my comment. “He won’t have gone far if he's driven them away. He’s been going downhill fast recently. Susie’s death really knocked him out, but even before that . . . His sight is going so he won’t be able to drive far, if at all, and he can’t keep away from the bottle.”

  I start to thank her, but the phone is cut off at the other end. Fine, she was helpful up to a point, and I can’t ask her for more.

  The salon is silent as I pick up my bag and cardigan, and even the familiar sights and sounds of the summer evening can’t calm my fears. Surely Stocker couldn’t harm Ella, because she belonged to Susie, but then she said he took her down to the Games Room the night Susie took her own life. To hide her from the doctor? What really happened at the house that night?

  Ella didn’t escape in any sense of the word, that day on the beach, and she hasn’t been settling into life with her Beverly. A trickle of ice creeps down my spine at a sudden thought. What if Ella was still helping Stocker this past couple of weeks? She was sent out to hunt for a new sister as she had so many times before, and it went wrong because Susie wasn’t there to organise it. Did she realise that John Stocker was trying to get rid of her, or was she waiting for him to call her home?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Johnnie crams everyone into his car, with Mary and me sitting on James’ and Kenny’s laps, and Beverly in the passenger seat. I don’t share my fears, but the sick feeling in my stomach isn’t helped by Johnnie’s high-speed driving, so I stay silent, one hand on James’ shoulder to steady myself. Johnnie darts in and out of the traffic, spinning the wheel deftly and finally makes a right turn up Landsdown Road.

  The side roads are quieter, and day-trippers and students wander along the tree-lined pavements, sipping bottles of cold drinks, or eating melting ice creams. We park under a tree.

  “Walk up to the front door like we’re going to a party,” Johnnie instructs as we hesitate on the pavement.

  We march up the black and white tiled path, letting the gate click behind us. The white-pillared entrance is imposing, speaking of wealth and authority. Nobody could possibly guess what lies behind this white-painted façade.

  Kenny, in the lead now, raps smartly on the black knocker, and the sound makes me jump. “Just in case. You never know, Stocker might have returned home.” He smiles at me, and steps in front, taking something from his pocket.

  I lean over to see, but he pushes me gently away. “You just stand there and look like you are waiting for someone to answer the door.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Breaking in.”

  Johnnie is grinning. “I’m glad you’re doing that and not me, but if you get stuck let me know and I’ll take over.”

  I stare at them both. “Do they teach boys this at school or something?”

  A final twist and click and the tool is swiftly back in Kenny’s pocket, the shiny black door swinging open in front of us. I glance quickly back, but nobody is watching us, and the road is quiet. We step inside, shoes tapping on the chequered tiles that continue in the hallway.

  “Anyone home?” James shouts, after he has pulled the door shut behind us. The echoes spin his words back but no reply booms down the empty staircase.

  “Bit late for that. Ella? Lily?” I call, peering into the first room on my left. Despite the splendour of the frontage, the fresh paint and the well-oiled gate, the house is in bad repair, like an old actress putting on makeup to fool an audience.

  The huge rooms should be airy and bright, but instead are dusty, and even in this hot weather, they smell damp and stale. The vast fireplaces stare like dead black eyes from the embellished walls. Chandeliers dripping with dancing crystals and drooping spider webs decorate the ornate ceilings. Most of the furniture is covered in sheets, or a thick dark material that might have been old blackout curtains.

  “They could be locked up anywhere in the house and we’d never hear them. This place is like a palace. There must be eight rooms just on this floor!” Beverly says despairingly.

  Johnnie nods. “Come on, it won’t take long. We’ll split up. We know Stocker isn’t here, so keep shouting for the girls. James, Mary and I
will go upstairs, Ruby and Ken can take Beverly and start on this level.” He runs up the stairs.

  “I’ll do this side if you do that one.” I move to the left-hand side of the hallway, and pull Beverly with me. Her fingers are cold and she clings to me for a couple of seconds before cautiously opening the door opposite.

  Our footsteps clatter on the bare floorboards and skitter across tiled floors. I fling open doors. James, nearer the top of the house, is banging on doors and his voice echoes down the stairwell. “Lily! Ella!”

  The house is huge, a proper old Georgian townhouse with four floors, fireplaces everywhere and dust sheets hung over what must be expensive furniture. In the cobwebbed, boarded-up rooms I find no evidence of the evil couple who lived here.

  The kitchens are on a lower level, and accessed by a green baize door. Like the other rooms they are dusty and full of spiders. Rat droppings are sprinkled in every corner, and the only thing in use appears to be the huge enamel sink. A couple of recently dirtied plates are piled next to it, and a mug half full of tea obscures the plug hole. I touch the mug with a finger, but it’s cold. There is only a thin layer of scum on top, though, suggesting that it has been made today.

  Through the kitchen is a scullery. The cellar entrance is much like the one we have at the salon, with brick steps leading down to a locked wooden door. I shout for Kenny, looking around for something to use as a weapon. Propped in one spider-infested corner are a number of gardening tools. I snatch up a heavy metal rake and start to batter the cellar door.

  “Here!” says Kenny, who has disappeared under a brick archway.

  The room is smaller, and houses a rusty wringer and another fireplace. One door opens out into a tangled garden, the other is set down a set of steps.

  “Mind out!” Kenny shoots the bolts, and shoves open the door with a crash.

  “Bloody hell!” I say, half choking on dust and wiping my eyes.

  Beverly pushes past, shouting for her daughter, her voice echoing, strangely distorted, around the walls.

  This cellar was clearly not used to store food or wine. It was a prison. The long rectangular room is separated into two halves by a brick wall and an arched doorway. In each half stand two cages. There are shackles and chains driven into the wall with huge metal rings thicker than my arm. Dark stains, made innocent by age, decorate the walls around the chains. Even after what has clearly been several years of disuse, the place stinks of terror, excrement and sweat. A place of death.

  I can’t stop shaking, and Kenny takes my hand and Beverly’s as we step through the archway to check the furthest room. I step carefully, peering into the gloom, glad of Johnnie’s torch. That man thinks of everything.

  “Look,” Beverly says suddenly and soberly.

  The shaft of light illuminates a pile of bones, and another, and another. Some of the skeletons are small and there are odd rags of clothing attached but the flesh has long since rotted away. From somewhere in the roof I can feel a draft of cool air. In one corner, half hidden by a little collection of bones, sits a doll. A dusty, grubby little naked doll. Its hair is caught up in a blue bow, and its blue glass eyes are watchful. I choke back vomit.

  “Lily! Ella!” My voice is sharp with fear and echoes around the cellars.

  A tiny scraping noise makes me turn towards the second room, under the archway.

  We run together across the dusty stone floor. Kenny is already moving towards the five wooden chests that are standing pushed up against the far wall. They are dark wood with heavy metal bolts and hasps holding them shut. I clutch myself tightly, wrapping my arms around my chest, shaking like I’ll never be warm again. The evil down here is so real, so raw and tangible it’s like I could take a bite out of the air and it would be poisonous.

  Slowly, struggling a little with the weight, Kenny opens the lid, and gives a sharp intake of breath. “It’s OK, Ruby. Just kid’s toys, and a few clothes.” He flings open another two, with the same result.

  I know he is thinking, as I am, of the irony of keeping toys in a torture chamber. If John Stocker was in the house with us now, I would kill him with my bare hands.

  The fourth chest is bizarrely filled with women’s underwear, and although we’ve lost hope by the last chest he hauls the lid open to reveal a hunched up figure, knees drawn up to her chest.

  “Ella!” Beverly half screams, rushing forward.

  “Oh God, it’s Lily!” I push past Kenny and together we lift the child out of the chest.

  She’s still breathing as I cradle her on my lap, but her eyes are shut. “I think she must have fainted, or perhaps been drugged. The noise I heard must have been her moving inside the trunk. I was beginning to think it was just a rat.”

  “Here, I’ll carry her out of here. I can’t see anything else but bones. Christ knows how many people he killed down here, but she’s certainly the last one to come out alive.”

  “But where is Ella?” Beverly is crying again, looking around the cellar in bewilderment. “Lily, wake up!”

  We head back up through the kitchen and meet James coming down the corridor. He exclaims at the sight of the sleeping girl.

  “It’s OK, she doesn’t seem to be hurt. I think she might have been drugged, though,” I tell him. “Where’s Johnnie?”

  “Finishing the top floor. We haven’t found anything interesting. This place has been left to rot, by the looks of it. Only a couple of rooms are habitable, and there's certainly no incriminating evidence. I suppose they thought of that ages ago and all the paperwork, money or drugs were moved.”

  I’m reluctant to lose sight of Lily, but we still have a child missing, and she seems to be sleeping peacefully. Kenny lays her carefully on a dust sheet and I fling my coat over her, tucking her cold hands underneath.

  “I expect the evidence was burnt,” says Beverly. “What the hell has he done with Ella?” She reaches over to where Kenny has laid Lily and gently shakes the girl. “Lily, where is Ella?” She looks up at us, pain and determination fighting it out in her eyes. “You keep searching, while I look after Lily. I’ll shout for you if she wakes up.”

  Spurred on by our discovery, we split up again and search the rest of the rooms. I discover another, smaller room next to the library which seems to have been set up as a bedroom. At first I think it must be Ella’s room, but as I open a few drawers and look properly I can see it was Susie’s room before she died. There are bottles of pills, and notes from the doctor. The single bed is piled high with pillows, and has a pink satin quilt, but the room smells of sickness and death.

  The trappings of her glamorous life must have mostly been left upstairs, but there are some lipsticks, a hairbrush and some pins lying in the dust. I open another couple of random drawers and pick out a box. Fingers scrabbling, hands shaking, I open the lid and tip the contents onto the bed. Lots of photographs, and duplicates of the newspaper clippings Kenny and Will have already given me. A few studio shots of Susie looking, as Catherine said, like a Hollywood film star with her perfect pout and Marilyn hair style.

  “Ken!”

  He comes quickly, feet thundering along the wooden floorboards. “Have you found something?”

  I hold up a yellowing newspaper cutting, tears in my eyes.

  The Brighton Herald, 23 May 1953

  Residents of White Oak estate enjoyed a street party yesterday . . .

  I don’t read the rest — my eyes are focused on the photograph, and its caption, ‘Beverly Collins and her four-year-old daughter, Ella, enjoying their picnic.’

  Beverly is smiling down at the little girl, her brown hair brushed back into a high ponytail. They look happy.

  “Why would she have kept this?” I frown at the date, my brain struggling. When did Beverly’s boyfriend leave? 1952? I remember Annie chuntering about how Beverly was a single mum by the time Ella was two . . . “I kept thinking it was a long time after Barry Green left and took all the money, to get revenge. If he did do that. Perhaps Stocker didn’t know about Beverl
y and Ella, or where they lived, even. Once they saw this all they had to do was get Stocker’s men to ask around, find out a bit more, and then . . .”

  Ken is shaking his head. “So between them they get revenge on Barry, and gain a child for Susie, but you’re right. Why wait two years? In that case, it was never about Beverly at all. She was right when she said she was just normal, but she just happened to have a rotten boyfriend.”

  I shiver. “I still can’t believe how evil Susie was. Worse than him, almost. She wanted a child but she found little girls for him to do terrible things to. Maybe she kept this just to gloat.”

  “Perhaps she regretted it in the end. It might be part of her decision to take her own life,” Kenny suggests, opening a wardrobe door. “Look at this!”

  I peer inside. “That's really weird and sick. Do you think these are Ella’s ‘sisters’?”

  There are no clothes, but the entire inside of the wardrobe is covered in black and white photographs of girls, pasted onto the wood. Mostly headshots, but some full length, dressed up in rather old-fashioned party clothes. Very few of the girls look happy.

  “And how are you going to explain Lily to Inspector Hammond? Are you going to admit breaking into the house?” Ken says finally, shutting the door on desperate eyes and forced smiles.

  I frown at him. “Susie was bloody mad, wasn’t she? Come on, let’s get out of here and take Lily to the hospital for a check-up. We need Inspector Hammond to find Ella. I’ll say the door was unlocked, and I walked in. They won’t care at this stage. I won’t mention anyone else.”

  “All those years, and Ella was right here in Brighton,” Kenny says, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe she was hidden away under their noses, and nobody guessed.”

  “Where do you think Stocker is now?” I want to scream with frustration, because although I’d been fairly sure we wouldn’t find the girls here, I was certain we would find something to tell us where he was. So much for hunches — maybe they're only for reporters after all.